Page 38 of Rewrite the Rules

This conference is a game changer, I promise. It’s how I learned to write. Come network, come learn, and let’s talk about your next project. And if nothing else, it’s in Vegas…so…yeah. Enough said.

I’ll see you soon!

Xoxoxo

TG

I blink at the screen as if the words might pop out and scurry across my desk.What the actual hell?I was expecting a funny meme or an inspiration quote. Maybe her latest newsletter. But this?

Tessa is my spirit animal. We get along so well because between her sass and snark, it’s like looking into a magic mirror that shows me the thirty-eight-year-old platinum-blonde version of myself. And guess what? I like what I see.

Tessa is my favorite client of all time. Hands down, no competition.Her book, my favorite project.

I’ve been ghostwriting since my failed self-publishing fiasco senior year of college. It’s a tricky field. You encounter every type of personality who needs a ghostwriter. Sometimes they are washed-up former best-selling authors who haven’t had a good story idea in decades. Other times it’s desperate content pushers who just want to put out a book a week, even if it doesn’t contain a single coherent thought. Their ambitious philosophy is something along the lines of—more words, more money. They carelessly release garbage novels while simultaneously bruising the sacredness of literature.

Tessa’s request at the beginning of this year was different. She posted on my usual writers-for-hire platform looking for a novelist and I immediately recognized her name. She didn’t post a job, she posted a call for an interview. She wasn’t going to let just anybody touch her baby. Tessa was already an established author and certainly didn’t need help writing. Why she was posting on a ghostwriters’ platform was beyond a mystery to me at the time but call me George because I was curious as all hell.

I cried after our first video chat. She was every bit as brilliant as I’d imagined. She needed a third-party perspective for her new book. She couldn’t go to any of her author friends because professional writers are too dominant with the direction, or so she explained, and would never share credit. This was Tessa’s story and she had a vision but needed it expressed through a non-biased lens.Toy With Mewas the story of Tessa’s divorce. The demise of her first true love.

The project helped her heal. We spent the majority of this past year building a book and a friendship together. She is a big believer in using stories to help you grow and find strength. That’s why she writes almost exclusively romance. I hear her beautiful words in my head, every day.

“Addie, love is the most potent and powerful force on the planet. Channeling it gives the author the ability to change the world.”

I drafted the story with Tessa guiding me the entire way. Did we take some creative liberties?Yes.Did we embellish some details and exaggerate some scenes?Hell, yes.We originally named itIf Our Hearts Could Speak, but the publisher quickly vetoed that. Too many words, too touchy-feely. The heart of the story was the crumbling of a marriage but from it, the birth of a beautiful and peaceful new beginning. But in the current market, the only thing that sells better than sex isa lotof sex. Therefore, we developed a slightly embellished rendition of our story.

The publisher opted forToy With Me, made the cover a blushing pink and slapped a picture of a vibrator on it. Boom! Best seller. Highly marketable. Tessa now has a partnership with several adult toy brands. I know this because she won’t stop sending me the extra freebies.Good grief.The back of my closet now doubles as a small adult store.

I open the attachments from Tessa’s email and look at the flight details. I look up ARIA in a Google search. She even splurged and got me a corner suite. I don’t have much experience with Vegas, but the hotel looks lovely and…expensive.Sheesh, Tess.

Let it be known that Tessa is an absolute boss bitch. She’s a mom of three, and still found a way to become a self-made millionaire in the aftermath of her agonizing divorce. The woman can write circles around me and I’d be an idiot not to jump at this offer.

This is happening.

Las Vegas, here we come. I just need a week off of work at a moment’s notice. What a perfect time to butter Joel up with his gift.

fourteen

Adler

Joel and I sit side by side on the floor of his office, eating right out of our takeout containers. I meant to leave work hours ago, but girls’ night was cancelled so I eagerly volunteered to keep him company. We sit amidst a splattering of opened manilla folders that Joel hunted through like a drug-dog at an LAX airport entrance. He was relentless. All this mess for one tiny Q3 earnings report from ten years ago for a company no longer in Aura’s portfolio.

I would’ve pressed Joel for more details on why that report is so important, but then he might’ve started talking about ventures, and a lady can only fake so much interest before her eyes fog over and give her away.

I ordered us dinner because I saw the obsessive look in his eyes when I knocked on his door just after five o’clock. He wasn’t leaving this office until he found the document and I wasn’t leaving until I knew he’d eat something.

“You’re a sweetheart,” Joel says as he leans over, nudging my shoulder. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Um…you know I put it on the company card, right?”

His chuckle is breathy. “As you should’ve. I mean thank you for picking it up.”

“Are you working like this because Steve is gone?”

“Swap me,” Joel says, reaching for the square container in my hand and handing me his. We’ve been eating at the Thai place so often that we’ve developed a pattern. I order pad Thai, he orders fried rice, we swap halfway through. We always make sure to double up on the steamed pork dumpling order because neither of us is great at sharing those delicious little wonton pillows of wonder. “What do you mean?”

“You’re here late every night and most weekends. Don’t you get burnt out?” Joel pokes at the noodles with the chopsticks I left in my container. “Do you want the fork?” I ask with a teasing smirk.

“No…I got it.” Joel can’t use chopsticks. He’s brilliant, intelligent, and cultured—but this is his kryptonite. I try to suppress my laughter as he uses the bamboo sticks as scoops instead of pinchers. “You don’t really get burnt out when you do what you love.”

---